In an effort to bolster the federal Liberals shaky arguments for a semi-national, cash-circulating Rube Goldberg carbon-tax price mechanism, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government are pointing to the work of William Nordhaus, one of this year’s Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Canadians would be better off taking advice from a Nobel Prize winner who supports carbon taxation than listening to “ideologues and politicians who deny there’s a problem in the first place,” Trudeau told high school students in Ottawa on Monday.

Similar appeals to Nordhaus as bearer of a Nobel encyclical for the new tax have come from Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s personal secretary. Butts, a former World Wildlife Fund activist, earlier this month tweeted: “You can now choose between a Nobel Prize-winning economist and (conservative politicians) Kenney/Ford/Scheer when deciding who is right about the economics of pollution pricing.”

Rube Goldberg, by the way, is the famed cartoonist from the early 20th century who drew images of wildly improbable contraptions. In 1931, he produced a pretty good illustration of a “Professor Butts” demonstrating his self-operating dinner napkin, which appears to function in roughly the same way as the climate-fixing carbon price. (The napkin contraption can be found at Wikipedia’s Rube Goldberg entry.)

Canada’s half-baked, go-it-alone deployment of such a regime is doomed

Aside from the twisted problems embedded in the Trudeau-Butts carbon-price scheme, there’s another niggling issue. Any reading of Nordhaus’s work on carbon taxation cannot avoid the conclusion that Canada’s half-baked, go-it-alone deployment of such a regime is doomed.

As I mentioned in a recent column on Nordhaus, the Nobel economist reached a “bottom line” conclusion in a 2014 paper that a carbon tax would require “clubs” of participating nations that would impose “penalties and sanctions on non-participants” to enforce international climate agreements. Unless most or at least a large number of major countries adopted a similar carbon tax and imposed direct tariffs of up to 10 per cent on all imports from non-carbon-tax countries (so-called free riders) then the carbon tax idea will fail — just like the Kyoto protocol, which set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions back in 1997. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, based on Nordhaus’s own writing on the subject, the Nobel Laureate would have to assess Canada’s carbon tax plan as dysfunctional and ineffectual.

[....]

(Corcoran responded to a criticism that suggested BC's plan was a working model. This is his response.}

Except 95 per cent of the electricity produced in B.C. is hydropower and is not CO2-taxed. B.C. does import more coal-fired power than any other province, but the CO2 tax is not applied to imported electricity. Therefore the carbon tax has had next-to-no impact on the province’s electricity prices — in spite of its significant imports of coal-fired power from Alberta.

And it gets worse. If a utility burns B.C. natural gas to produce electricity in the province, the CO2 tax appears in the consumer’s utility bill. But if B.C. natural gas is shipped across the border into Washington, made into electricity there, and then exported back to the province, there’s no CO2 tax in the utility bill. How bizarre is that?

So, note to Leach: Make sure you find out what Nordhaus actually knows about the B.C. tax. And, while you’re at it, have a look at whether B.C.’s carbon tax has been effective in curbing emissions and fossil fuel use.

Finally, the suggestion that Nordhaus’s conclusion on the “bottom line” on carbon taxes was taken “out of context” does not stand up. In his 2014 paper, Nordhaus uses “bottom line” four times, including this reference from the abstract summary of his conclusions:

It “has proven difficult to overcome the obstacles to reaching international agreements caused by free-riding, as seen with the defunct Kyoto Protocol… The bottom line of this study is the following: Using a simplified representation of climate change economics and international trade, it finds that without sanctions there is no stable climate coalition other than the non-cooperative minimal-abatement coalition. However, a regime with small trade penalties on nonparticipants can induce a stable coalition with globally efficient levels of abatement. Moreover, such a regime would attract a large majority of countries relative to the current situation, where international climate treaties are essentially voluntary. The essential feature for making the club effective is uniform penalty tariffs on nonparticipants.”

Nordhaus is equally explicit in his 2013 book, The Climate Casino. On pages 256-7 (look it up), he says an effective climate policy involves a carbon price set nationally and internationally and enforced through sanctions, penalties and tariffs — as high as 10 per cent, he has suggested — applied across the board on all imports from non-complying countries.

Whether the world is warming or not, whether it is an actual crisis or not, the plan will not work. And Butts and his but-boy know it won't work. It's another one of these thigs they tell us that if we do it, the Americans will have to join. Martin told us that about Kyoto. But when did that every happen?

Majority of Canadians back carbon tax — Saskatchewan’s support is also growing: poll

As the Trudeau government continues to push its national carbon tax program, a new poll suggests a majority of Canadians may be behind the prime minister’s plan.

On Thursday, Angus Reid released its latest poll showing 54 per cent of respondents supported the soon-to-be-implemented carbon tax.

READ MORE: Confused about carbon taxes and rebates? Here’s what you need to know

The largest increase in support for the plan came from Saskatchewan, which saw an 18-percentage-point hike between July and October (11 per cent to 29 per cent). And the endorsement for carbon tax seems to be tied to the government’s rebate plan.

Exactly ... they imply that nobody will be out-of-pocket because the taxes will be ... rebated? To whom? The individual tax-payer? Or to some provincial government agency? Like the Department of Climate Control, Public Information Section?

It's duplicity.

It's too bad the whole country can't get on a plane and jet away to Singapore like Trump did when he saw Justin was taking him for a fool.

I read Trudeau's statement. I just didn't believe them In fact, in my experience, the Liberals cannot do these kinds of transfers without doing some redistributing ...

But how could a family even know how much carbon tax they pay? The effect will be filtered into the price of commodities. Sorry, I just consider Justin's assertions to be part of the noise.

And when did it become good policy to tax the population and then to return that tax to them in the same year?

I know there are zealots and lo-watt followers who actually believe that Justin & Crystia won something in the trade deal. Any politician that would dish up delusion on that scale would certainly tell a lie to get past the next election. It isn't as if they've suddenly got integrity.

A government document quietly posted online confirms what many have long suspected: that the government is eyeing raising the federal carbon tax beyond the current ceiling of $50 per tonne.

On Wednesday, amendments to the federal carbon tax legislation were posted on the Canada Gazette – the government’s official newspaper – and the document describes how the already controversial $50 per tonne price that comes into full effect in 2022 may be just the beginning following a five-year review that could very well call for steep increases.

“The overall approach will be reviewed by early 2022 to confirm the path forward, including continued increases in stringency. The review will account for progress and for the actions of other countries in response to carbon pricing, as well as recognition of permits or credits imported from out countries,” reads the text. This text does not make its way into the actual legislation but is rather part of the “regulatory impact analysis statement” that explains the amended legislation.

This actually isn’t the first time versions of this text have cropped up in government documents though.

Earlier this year, when journalists and the public were only just starting to really pay attention to the issue, the government released a technical briefing paper on the carbon tax that explained that “the Pan-Canadian Framework includes a commitment for a review of the overall approach to pricing carbon by early 2022 to confirm the path forward.” This is pretty common stuff though, periodic reviews of legislation, so it perhaps wasn’t flagged as noteworthy to anyone. And the sentence ends at “path forward”, without specific references to increases.

But the full sentence first cropped up at least two years ago, before the issue was under its current degree of scrutiny. An October 2016 backgrounder from Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna’s office uses that very sentence: “The overall approach will be reviewed by early 2022 to confirm the path forward, including continued increases in stringency.”

Now all of this makes total sense when you consider it from the Liberal perspective. As a number of astute observers, including my colleague Lorrie Goldstein, have pointed out multiple times, the current carbon tax levels are enough to be a pest on taxpayers but not enough to seriously put a dent on our current emissions levels or get us to our current targets.

Hence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and McKenna have been criticized by environmentalists for basically just adopting the same targets as former PM Stephen Harper.

People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier says he is against the Paris Accord, a high-profile UN framework that deals with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.

“Actually, I’m the only politician in Ottawa who is against the Paris Accord,” Bernier told CTV News in an interview.

He went on to call the Trudeau government “hypocrites” for signing on to a deal with targets that he says they will fail to meet.

“They’re saying to people that they will achieve the targets of the Paris Accord and every expert, they know that they won’t. So why are you signing an agreement if you’re not able to achieve the goals that you said that you will achieve?” Bernier said.

“So that’s why we are against the Paris Accord.”

The deal entered into force on Nov. 4, 2016, a little under a year after its conception at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Its central aim is to keep the global temperature from rising well below two degrees Celsius. Many countries set targets to toughen their climate action by 2020.

A recently released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however, warned that unless countries ratchet up their environmental efforts, the world could experience disastrous consequences of climate change even sooner than previously thought.

This isn’t the first time Bernier has spoken out against the Paris Accord. In an Oct. 7 tweet, Bernier said the Paris accord is “just a giant Marxist wealth redistribution scheme.”

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer signalled his support for the Paris Accord when he affirmed in an April interview with CTV that his yet-to-be-unveiled climate plan will meet Paris targets.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has also pledged to put Canada “back on track” to meet the Paris Accord commitments.

Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand revealed in her 2017 fall report that the federal government is poised to miss the mark on its 2020 climate targets. When Evan Solomon, host of CTV’s Question Period, pressed Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on Oct. 27 for an update on whether Canada can reduce emissions in time to meet the goals outlined in the Paris agreement, the minister wouldn’t say.

Instead, she highlighted different components of the government’s environmental initiatives.

This is a good start. Bernier's party ought to make the point that we'll do what the world does, but we won't be the tame elephant ... so, when the USA, China and India come aboard, we can look at the question again.

“Going to a Court of Appeal with a black gown on and a big briefcase doesn’t actually constitute a climate change plan,” Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade Dominic LeBlanc told CTV’s Question Period in an interview airing Sunday.

“I’ve never heard a scientist say, ‘The most important thing we can do is show up and argue for 90 minutes at a Court of Appeal.’”

LeBlanc spoke on the sidelines of the first ministers meeting in Montreal, where premiers met Friday to discuss domestic trade barriers, jobs and protecting the environment.

The federal government contends that a carbon tax is the best way to curb climate change and meet Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments. Ottawa has asked all provinces to set a minimum price on emissions of $20 a tonne by Jan. 1.

If the provinces don’t have a plan in place, Ottawa will apply its own federal carbon tax. In those cases, the federal government said 90 per cent of proceeds of the tax will be returned to taxpayers as rebates.

The federal tax will be applied April 1 in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick – the four provinces without their own carbon tax or pollution-pricing scheme.

But Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe insists that his province’s own climate change plan, which does not include a carbon tax, is sufficient – and that Ottawa’s intervention would be an overstep.

“We’ve always said its provincial jurisdiction, the federal government should not be involved,” Moe told Question Period from Montreal. “And a carbon tax in Saskatchewan simply doesn’t work.”

Saskatchewan is taking that argument to its provincial Court of Appeal in February, where lawyers for the province will challenge the carbon tax’s constitutionality. The province has argued that the carbon tax is not being applied evenly across Canada.

Shortly after Doug Ford was elected, Ontario launched its own legal challenge, calling the federal carbon tax a form of “unconstitutional disguised taxation." New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs announced earlier this week that the Atlantic province is also taking Ottawa to court, citing concerns that New Brunswickers could be forced to pay the highest gas prices in Canada.

Moe fears that a carbon tax would have national repercussions.

“Let’s be clear: in its current form it will kill not only pipeline construction but any industrial mining construction across the nation. There are amendments that need to be made to that bill, or the bill needs to be scrapped,” Moe said.

LeBlanc says the federal government is prepared for the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.

“People can go to courts of appeal, provincial governments can submit reference cases on all kinds of questions. That doesn’t surprise us, that doesn’t concern us. We’ll obviously answer those objections in court,” he said.

As for the economic effect of the carbon tax, which critics caution could threaten industries such as mining and oil production, LeBlanc cited some present-day examples.

“The (first ministers) meeting took place in Quebec. Quebec has one of the most performing economies in the Canadian federation. They have a cap-and-trade system, a price on pollution. Premier Horgan spoke eloquently about the province of British Columbia, which is performing extraordinarily well. They’ve had for over a decade a price on pollution,” he said.

This blurb talks about where the increasing CO2 is chiefly coming from.

Quote:

...China's emissions passed those of the U.S. in 2005, and by 2012 had surpassed the combined contribution of both the U.S. and the EU. Should recent trends continue, China will be responsible for the most atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than 20 years.

China has lots of regional company, t00. The Asia Pacific region is home to both China and India -- the world's two most populous countries and two of the largest carbon dioxide emitters. It is also home to other fast-growing and/or populous countries, like Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Japan. Over the past decade, this region's carbon dioxide emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 3.1%, which was nearly triple the global average. As a result, Asia Pacific is now responsible for nearly 50% of global carbon dioxide emissions. [....]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/#7d568f2a628c

Bullet points

* China and India have refused to accept any limitation on their CO2 emissions.
* China is the leading producer of CO2, yielding twice as much as the USA, and more than the USA, the EU, and Canada combined.
* India seriously lags but is growing quickly. The largely uncontrolled emissions of the SE Asia region are growing at the rate of 3.1% annually
* China and India are would increase their present production of CO2 by over 420,000 kt in a year. If Canada cut its emissions by 10% -- which would impose immense hardship -- it would only be 55,540 kt. and while we would be saving that, it would be eaten up by the increase in CO2 presently occurring in SE Asia in six week.

Conclusion Anything Canada does will be like pissing in the ocean unless China, India, and the USA join in the agreement and honour their committments. Fat chance.
=================================================

These are the facts that ought to be included in any discussion of a carbon plan. Not the stupid arrogance of government -- alrealdy well established.

Last edited by Bugs on Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

But that's the situation, isn't it? If we start down the same kind of drastic road that Macron took the French down, there will be trouble. Maybe not gilet-jaune trouble, but trouble of some kind. And it would be useless!

In my view, Canada has to wait for it trade partners to do something, and then fall into line. The tail cannot wag the dog, we learned that from the imposition of metric, which was sold on the idea that if we did it the Americans would have to follow suit. Hah! Then they did it with Kyoto. telling us if we signed it, the Americans would have to. Hah!

Where we are 35, they are 335 ... it's just an immutable fact. Pierre, the brainy Trudeau, once described Canada as a flea in bed with an elephant. I'm sorry, but under his son, we are the flea crawling up the elephant's leg with intentions of rape.

The tail cannot wag the dog, we learned that from the imposition of metric, which was sold on the idea that if we did it the Americans would have to follow suit. Hah!

Actually the US was already on the road to metric.

We had issue since the US gallon and Imperial gallon were causing issues. ( Cdn Gallon =4.55L , US gallon 3.79 causing us issues in sales)

The US was already swtiching then balked and we had to go it alone. It should have been done in the US as it is a stupid system and metric is far more precise. To their credit the US industry that relies on exacts uses metric all the time. The avg joe, not so much.

Source: My dad was high up in the Metric Commission .He was an engineer of high ranking by then. ( but got out before Lavalin imploded with payoffs)

You don't know your ass from page 4 about the imposition of metric. There may have been some encouraging officials, but Trudeau Sr. wasn't likely to pay much attention. It was going to increase our exports for example. What a load!

We were told that calculation would be easier when groceries came in metric because you would be able to compare prices without knowing arithmetic, always a pleasing prospect to homemakers. Except the cans didn't go to metric. Now we can get the per/ml price by dividing not by 1000 or 500 ... because most of the containers never changed! Now we have cans that are 285 ml or something instead of 10 ounces ... we have a metric measurements in an imperial world. The sheet of drywall that used to be 4' x 8' is now 122 x 422 cm. That makes things so much easier for the numerically challenged types who install drywall or go shopping.

Between the liter and the American gallon, the imperial gallon has gone the way of the bushel and a peck. Only we call the American gallon 3.78 liters. It was a huge burden on the population, nobody wanted it, and it did no good. Typical.

Funny that. Still have the glasses at home from that period. Collectors items they are.

Quote:

There may have been some encouraging officials, but Trudeau Sr. wasn't likely to pay much attention. It was going to increase our exports for example. What a load!

Nah...changing a measurement doesnt increase exports.

Anyhow, here you go.....
The US.

Quote:

In 1971, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, in transmitting to Congress the results of a 3-year study authorized by the Metric Study Act of 1968, recommended that the U.S. change to predominant use of the metric system through a coordinated 10-year national program. The U.S. Congress responded by enacting the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, calling for voluntary conversion. (A 10-year deadline was included in the original bill, but the deadline was not included in the final version passed by Congress.)

The Canucks

Quote:

The Liberal federal government of Pierre Trudeau first began implementing metrication in Canada in 1970 with a government agency dedicated to implementing the project, the Metric Commission, being established in 1971. By the mid-1970s, metric product labelling was introduced. In 1972, the provinces agreed to make all road signs metric by 1977.

So...yup, the US was to change but suffered apathy and it soon died out.

Say what about being an ass?

LOL! Schooled !

Quote:

We were told that calculation would be easier when groceries came in metric because you would be able to compare prices without knowing arithmetic, always a pleasing prospect to homemakers. Except the cans didn't go to metric. Now we can get the per/ml price by dividing not by 1000 or 500 ... because most of the containers never changed! Now we have cans that are 285 ml or something instead of 10 ounces ... we have a metric measurements in an imperial world. The sheet of drywall that used to be 4' x 8' is now 122 x 422 cm. That makes things so much easier for the numerically challenged types who install drywall or go shopping.

No, you fail to counter that most consumers wanted continuity. Folks didnt really understand that a new can would be a reality , nor did anyone propose that we do.

Nor did sellers want a different can for CDA vs USA . Didnt make sense. One exception I know of was pop. US pop was 12 oz and CDN was 10oz. That changed IIRC in the early 80's.

A piece of drywall was not an issue. Consumers knew the size never changed. No one was confused, ya know, save for small towners who lacked education.

Quote:

Between the liter and the American gallon, the imperial gallon has gone the way of the bushel and a peck.

Except you still find it written on brand new gas cans. Funny that huh? LOL!

Quote:

Only we call the American gallon 3.78 liters.

Only you. Most educated people know to refer to it as the US gallon.

Quote:

It was a huge burden on the population, nobody wanted it, and it did no good. Typical.

Saved millions in conversion fees going forward when trading off our continent and the world knows it. The US pays a large price reconfiguring machines, but generally industry that requires exacts use SI exclusively .
It is too unsafe to have two competing systems and the Yanks in the know have changed.

It caused us hiccups for sure. Gimli glider for one.

Lots of speeding tickets for two.

Anyhow, great conversation and I truly hope you learned something today. Its been quite an education for you this long day.

Best get some rest and do some reading on International Law. It will improve your knowledge and comprehension of these seemingly easy concepts.

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